Peking Lilac, Pekin Lilac, Chinese Tree Lilac               si-RING-ga pe-kin-EN-sis

• Deciduous shrub or small tree, multi-stemmed, 15-20 ft (4.5-6 m) high, slightly less in width; branches slender and brownish red when young; bark is smooth with prominent lenticels and/or exfoliating in brown flakes sheets.  Leaves simple, opposite, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 5-10 cm long, 2.5-5 cm wide, dark green above and grayish green below, mostly glabrous (without hairs).  Flowers yellowish white, in clusters 7.5-15 cm long, applear in early summer.  Fruit oblong, acute, 1.3-2.5 cm long.
• Sun.  Resitant to mildew.
• Hardy to USDA Zone 4  [Not as hardy as Syringa reticulata (Snyder, 2000)]    Native to northern China.  Introduced to Western cultivation via seeds sent from Peking to England in 1881 and to Arnold Arboretum the next year (Jacobson, 1996).
• Oregon State Univ. campus: on the north side of Orchard Ave. west of 27th St. (across from Cordley Hall)